Germany’s SAP sees silver lining in Trump’s trade skirmishes

SAP CEO Bill McDermott on why it’s unlikely that President Trump’s trade negotiations will have a negative impact on his business.

As President Trump weighs negotiating unilateral deals with China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union to avoid trade war skirmishes, one international software corporation says that it’s benefitting from the political uncertainty.

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SAP CEO Bill McDermott, an American who heads the German software giant from Newtown Square, Pa, said turmoil tends to boost their business, which involves working with more than 310,000 customers in 190 different countries.

“The most important thing from an SAP perspective is when there’s chance or uncertainty or the rules shift, we generally do pretty well in an environment of unpredictability because our software accommodates that change,” McDermott said during an interview with FOX Business’ Liz Claman on Tuesday.

The White House clashed with finance leaders of U.S. allies at a three-day meeting in Canada ahead of the G7 summit next week in Quebec. All six of the G7 countries are now paying steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by Trump in hopes of curtailing “dumping” of the cheap metals by China.

Despite that, since mid-last week, SAP’s shares have gained over 4% trading around the $115 per share level.

‘We saw this with the financial crisis, we saw this with the crisis in Greece, and obviously we saw this with Brexit,” McDermott said. “We’ll be there to help the President of the United States, and the presidents of all countries that want to come to the table and get good business done in a fair and equitable way.”